The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Colours for a natural Holi this year

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Friday, Mar 21, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Colours for a natural Holi this year

Staff Reporter

— Photo: PTI

A girl with Holi messages in Bikaner on Thursday.

Bangalore: If Holi is the festival of Spring, it has got to be celebrated with colour. But much has changed since the days when the flowers in bloom made up the colours used in the festival: most famously the bright red gulal from the Indian Coral Tree.

Today, so obviously dangerous are some of the colours sold that some packets even say “for industrial use only”, observe the members of Pune-based Kalpavriksh Environment Action Group, which has been leading a campaign on safe Holi.

If the copper sulphate in green colour causes eye allergies, silver colour contains carcinogenic aluminium bromide and the colour red is made from highly toxic mercury sulphite.

But then again what is Holi without a splash of colour?

Now you can get hold of natural Holi colour — made from such organic material as turmeric, lemon juice, alum, annatto seeds, indigo, red earth and rice flour.

Kalpavriksh and women’s collective Vanastree, based in Sirsi, Uttara Kannada, along with a social enterprise called eCoexist, have created “Rang Dulaar”, which produces a range of natural colours.

The enterprise also aims to help farmers supplement their farming income, and involves the women prisoners of the Yerawada Jail, who package the colour, generating income for them during their prison term.

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